The Daunting Heart
by Isinglass Queen
Summary: Post Divergent. As the result of recent events, Elena - Erudite - is sent to investigate Dauntless. For Eric, who still may be found guilty, seeing her is the last thing he expects or wants. Will they overcome the past which has torn them apart and led them both to believe that being Divergent is the ultimate sin? Will they see past their factions' rules and find their love again?


**A/N: This story begins right after the Divergent movie. I must admit here that I haven't read the books (although, now, as I've seen the movie, this will DEFINITELY change), so whatever I will write, most probably will defy the plot of Insurgent. I must, also, hereby claim the obvious - I do not own Divergent plot nor characters. I only came up with the OCs and the plot. **

**Another thing to admit: it's a story mostly about Eric. I do believe he deserves a chance to be, sort of, redeemed as a character, but in no way, I will make him into a perfect good-boy, because, simply, that wouldn't be Eric anymore.**

**It's a first chapter, so it's sort of descriptive, introduction-ish, but I really, really hope you will like it! Comments are highly appreciated!**

* * *

><p>Chapter 1. What did not end begins again<p>

The world you know, the world we all live in, it may appear to be so stable, so unbreakable, with all its rules and traditions, with the glorified "Faction before blood" which seems to be engraved in our hearts, with everything we know so well and follow so blindly. The truth is, though, our world is a mirage. Even a lie, maybe. It's so fragile, that all it takes to bring it down is a couple of Divergent.

And Eric.

As soon as I heard the news, I just knew he'd be involved. Where's trouble, you'd definitely find him, in the very middle, high on adrenaline and wrong reasons. Nothing has changed. And it would have brought a smile to my face, if it only wasn't so terrifying. I watched the images on the screens showing all those Dauntless, without a mind or will of their own, pointing guns at innocent – I believed so – Abnegation. I never bought all that crap Erudite used to come up with about them, after all, despite all our empty slogans, human nature cannot be conquered and it was all about power.

"Did you hear that Jeanine was mixed up with this?" Jessie, a friend of mine and a fellow Erudite asked as we stared at the huge screens in the main hall of our building, as the events replied before our eyes. Jessie was lower in the ranks than me, but, still we have managed to remain friends since our Initiation. We were both transfers and it took us a lot of effort to get used to Erudite ways. Especially that we came from what had seemed like different worlds. Each faction was, in a way, a separate world. Poles apart, and, yet, somehow, fitting into the bigger scheme. The scheme which was now falling apart in front of our very eyes.

"Does that surprise you?" I answered with a question, although, I did not expect any answer from Jessie. We both knew Jeanine had very extreme vision of how our already extreme society should be like. And we both knew that in this society, any kind of extreme is not welcomed, even if it serves to keep this society unchanged.

But then, again, all Jeanine wanted was power. So, really, no surprise she'd wound up exposed. What was surprising, though, at least to me, was the involvement of the Dauntless leadership. Yeah, I knew they all were supposed to be mindless soldiers, but, they were not. At least, not until they were given whatever it was that had actually turned them into mindless soldiers. Mindless puppets, more like it.

I couldn't stop wondering, whether Eric, too, had been turned into a stupid marionette, but I had hard time imagining it. There was far more probability, that he took part in all this motivated by his own beliefs.

And I knew his beliefs, I knew his grief about Divergent and I felt very, _very_ guilty. Because, despite all the bullshit Eric might come up with to justify his actions, at the very bottom of it all, I was to blame.

My name is Elena and I'm Dauntless. Well, technically I'm an Erudite, who _used to be_ Dauntless, but things are always more complicated than that. And people are often more than just one thing. And it's not as rare as the society wants us to think.

"Evangeline Saunders, please report to the Main Headquarters QR33", the low, inhuman voice filled the main hall. I sighed and turned to leave, expecting nothing good. Headquarters QR33 was were Jeanine worked…or used to work…who knows – and I, as her closest subordinate, was definitely up for a lot of questioning.

And, yes, I had changed my name. For Erudite I am Evangeline. Here, in this world, Elena does not exist.

**xXxXxXxXxXxXxX**

The harsh truth is, as much as help I'd always been to Jeanine, she had never trusted me. Not enough to share her sinister plans with me. So, in the end, I wasn't of much help with the investigation. I did tell them, though, that the recent _issues_ – let's call it like that – were something I would expect from Jeanine, but I couldn't offer anything more than my opinions. And in the world of Erudite opinions don't matter. All we care about are facts. There was no facts to subtract from my mind. Even if there were any, I've learnt to overcome the effects of the truth serum long time ago. There's no such thing that you cannot train yourself to defeat, if you really want to. That's what I'd been brought up to believe by Dauntless and that's certainly not something I was going to give up, not after changing factions, nor ever.

With the leader of Abnegation missing, the whole leadership of Dauntless and Erudite in chaos, an urgent meeting of all factions' leadership was held and, in this society, when something is urgent, it is usually done within, like, an hour or so. We may live by crazy, not-so-up-do-date rules, but we do cherish our technology. And so, as the outcome of the recent _issues_, Dauntless and Erudite leadership was, unsurprisingly, overthrown and both factions will be under strict investigation, control, supervision, invigilation and what not.

And, as shaken as our society is, we have managed to _somehow_ – at least for the moment – not dissolve into complete madness. Mostly thanks to Candor. As much as I hate to admit it, they stepped up and put quite a good action plan in place.

And, as a result of this action plan, I am now one of the Clear-cut Order Ambassadors, delegated to monitor one of the factions until peace is restored. Apparently, it's not wise to leave any of the factions unsupervised. To a degree, it's true, but then, again, it's not like there had been no supervision before. It's not like we had been allowed any level of secrecy.

And yet, _things_ had happened and here I am now, on my way to the fortress of Dauntless. I'm on that damn train and I'm coming home.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thanks for reading! The next chapter, where more things will actually happen :) to come very soon! Comments highly appreciated!**


End file.
